Have you ever thought of what your body language reveals about you? One of the many perks of reading body language is the ability to read other peoples intentions. But as you may realize instantly, this means a double e… (keep reading)
It’s perfectly normal to face adversity and not know how to react. (Maybe we don’t even know how to define how we feel about it) Ludwig Wittgenstein wants to help us: Wittgenstein was a disciple of Bertrand Russell, who pushed login into him with the same subtlety of Pulp Fiction’s adrenaline injection. (And Ludwig’s reaction was similar): Language is made of * propositions *. For example, “Lasagna makes you fat”. There is a problem: Wittgenstein argued that only the propositions that we can verify empirically (through our experience) as ‘true’ or ‘false’ are valid. Therefore, concepts such as moral, ethics and ... [keep reading...]
How many rules should we obey on a daily basis? Hundreds; Maybe thousands. They are necessary to live together, but which ones do we impose ourselves? Nietzsche has a couple of things to say about it: We can rest assured that this philosopher had a poster of Schopenhauer in his room, much like having one of Ozzy Osbourne. Of course, he studied in depth that “Will and Representation”, that the famous pessimist wrote; The duality of our world. Then he noticed a pattern: Plato spoke of a ‘real’ world (which we could only grasp with our intellect) and an ‘apparent’ world, which ... [keep reading...]
People’s attention span is getting shorter, so we must look for creative ways to capture and maintain it. That reminds me of a fifteen-year-old who one day decided to steal a book, regardless of the consequences: It was at the end of the 70s, and while all his friends were drooling for Space Invaders, he just wanted the book ‘Switch’ by Elmore Leonard. So much was his desperation to have the volume in his hands, that he did not hesitate for a second to steal it. The inexperience led to his capture. The teenager apologized to the owners of the premises, ... [keep reading...]
When life's curve balls hit us right in the liver, it's normal (but useless) to complain about our bad fortune. Christopher Reeve was understandably depressed right after his accident... until he had a singular visit: On May 27, 1995, Reeve was thrown from his horse during an equestrian jumping event, landing on his head. When he woke up four days later, he was paralyzed from the neck down, with a 50 percent chance of surviving. "Way too fucked up" pretty much sums it up. His situation struck fast and hard. He began to feel depressed and uncertain of his future. Not ... [keep reading...]
In every political debate, it's common to choose a 'winner'. Body language is part of that criteria, but how do you know who dominated others with their nonverbal expression? Just pay attention to these 7 tips: 1 - "Baton Gestures" are the ones we use to support a speech. It's easy to recognize them as one or both hands emphasize certain words. Common mistake: to make them too close or far from the body, or not synchronized with the word you want to stress. 2 - We use 'pacifiers' to calm down when we are nervous. Touching our clothes ... [keep reading...]
"There is no destiny, only the one we forge." Sarah Connor's statement has fascinated me since 1991 when she engraved it with a knife like a bored teenager in class. However, certain terms and conditions apply: Sometimes, take bold actions does not mean exactly what we imagine. An example: Reviewing the assignments of our courses, I noticed the anecdote of one of our participants in an airport. In this particular case, an immigration official was reluctant to accept his transit through the country, despite having his documents in order. If it was Sarah Connor, things would have escalated... rather quickly. But ... [keep reading...]
To negotiate effectively, it's important to recognize the different styles of this art. The style you choose will depend on your goals, your personality and circumstances, as well as the motivations of the other party. Of course, some styles are more 'combative' than others. Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann developed an instrument to assess the behavior of an individual in conflict situations. In this model, they describe five different personalities to handle conflict situations in negotiations. Those 5 negotiation styles are ... 1. Compete: Win-Lose This style is competitive and one of the most used in negotiation; Those who employ it ... [keep reading...]
En Diciembre de 2017, el mundo del ajedrez presenció el enfrentamiento entre David y Goliath. En una esquina estaba Stockfish, un programa de computación que había desarrollado sus habilidades a lo largo de más de 700 millones de partidas y que había sido 'entrenado' enseñándole los movimientos de todos los campeonatos mundiales de ajedrez de los últimos 30 años, así como todas las estrategias usadas por los maestros. Un verdadero monstruo. En la otra esquina se encontraba AlphaZero, una Inteligencia Artificial (IA) que se había enseñado a sí misma a jugar ajedrez. Lo único que sus programadores le enseñaron fueron los ... [keep reading...]
When talking about facial expressions, it sometimes worries us a bit how we’re going to manage to identify the 10,000 different expressions that scientist Paul Ekman classified in his Facial Action Coding S… (keep reading)